Yellow alert for pollution in Beijing

The city’s air pollution emergency response office issued on Tuesday the first yellow alert for this winter, which is the least severe one in its newly updated three-tier warning system. The red alert is still the highest in its color-coded warning system, followed by orange and yellow, which is issued when the AQI (Air Quality Index) is forecast to exceed 200 for more than two days in a row.

As of 12 p.m. local time, Beijing’s Environmental Protection Monitoring Centre reported the city’s average AQI have reached 311, a level deemed “hazardous” on most scales.